Universal Goes Blu

At least one of the two studios exclusive to HD DVD is already gearing up to join the other team.

"While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray," said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

[pwnsause]

Here we go. Up next is Paramount, who's going to return to the BDA in embarrassment after they took a 150 million dollar contract from Toshiba to go exclusive.

[decapitator]

Another good news for the blu-ray camp. Surprising, this year has been mostly good PS3/Sony news since January. And that might go on for a very long time as it shows not signs of slow downs. After all the format war stuff dies down, the games comes to play and Sony have a lot of them this year.

[marinelife9]

Notice that Ken Graffeo didn't make the Universal Pictures Blu-ray statement??

I bet he gets fired by the end of the week.

[travelguy2k]

All signs say they made a great business deceision. They sold some HD DVD and made some money, now they can release all those "exclusive" titles on blue ray and make more in addition to the $150,000,000.

P.S. and even if they are how much embarrassment would you put up with for $150,000,000 dollars. I would take allot.

[MK_Red]

Why embarrasment? They got a sweet 150 mil and now are gonna enjoy the sales on Blu-ray. Plus, BDA would definitly welcome them because of their huge franchises like Shrek and Transformers.

Glad to see that Bourne is indeed coming home. The war is OVER.

[wallace1000]

Paramount made a sweet deal. They got the coin then changed sides when they wanted to. Sounds like they got to have their cake and eat it!

[NEO_X]

Blu-ray camp: come on over here lil guy
Universal: *quivers in fears and curls into the fetal position*
Blu-ray camp: No really really we welcome you to the Blu
Universal: Rea... Really?
Blu-ray camp: Of course welcome welcome.
Blu-ray camp & Universal: *frolic off into the sunset*

ha ha im such a loser What a great day now that this whole war bull is over !rejoice!

[ravinash]

I have never heard of anyone being embarrassed at getting 150 million dollars.
sure they look a little silly, but in a few months no one will remember and in a year they will be racking it in with the BlueRay sales because customer can now buy with confidence.

[SmokeyMcBear]

uh is this really news.. i mean cmon.. we already know its going to happen due to toshiba backing out of hd dvd.. its pretty much a foregone conclusion.. so can we finally let the format wars articles die?

[pwnsause]

yea true, but its just funny to mock them, especially paramount.

[resistance100]

Well to be fair paramount must be loving it, they got $150million for what 7months of the 18 months of exclusivity plus will now release all the previous HD DVD exclusive titles on blu-ray making even more money

[pwnsause]

resistance100, yea that is true i guess they were the real winners here.

[actas123]

I think Toshiba backing out of the format war was not for free. I think they made a deal with paraount and the BRA and got some money in order to quit now. Otherwise they could have stayed in the race and forced Paramount and universal to keep releasing on HD DVD exclusively which would have killed these two studios HD sales..

[Brian5247]

One more studio to go!!

[jwatt]

I work at universal but I never understood why they didn't support Blu Ray, Well it's about time!

[Mu5afir]

If I am not mistaken a portion of Universal is owned by Microsoft, though Vivindi is the major share holder.

[rawd]

I thought NBC/Universal was owned by General Electric

[spandexxking]

good news for the suits at universal means they can actually start making money!

[chaosatom333]

it's like beating a dead horse over and over and over again.

[resistance100]

and one thing which doesn't get boring.

You have to remember that 360 Fans gave ps3 fans about 2 years worth of stick, however since about november/december last year there has been nothing but positive news and the ps3 fans are loving it and now its the 360's turn for the more negitive news

[Mattearl]

Now please make Gladiator into BD please. :)(i think Gladiator is a Universal film...)

[LaChance]

I feel sorry for the HDDVD camp though I didnt care about the format war I feel almost sad for them , would have been the same if it were Blu ray that sinked.
I never would have imagined that I would actually feel sorry for them , strange feeling...

[LJWooly]

From what I've seen in the past year, the HD-DVD camp were pretty arrogant to begin with, while the Blu-Ray camp tended to take a more 'wait and see' approach, which worked out well for them.
However, to the people who invested in HD-DVD add ons for 360 or standalone HD-DVD players... yeah, I feel sorry for you.

[Anything but Cute]

About Digital Downloads. I have downloaded a couple on XBOX 360. Not anymore. Just experimented. It took hours and hours and hours.

I don't think that's gonna work right now, especially not on XBOX 360. Since the longer the machine stays on, the more of a liability it is to red ring.

But that's just my observation.

[rbanke]

Red rover red rover, i call Paramount on over...

[BigKev45]

Back to the Future to be on Blu Ray! Yeah!

[AliC]

Transformers on Blu-ray please :)oh wait that's paramount

[LJWooly]

I personally didn't care for that movie. Sure, the robots are cool, and the special effects are second to none, but overall, it just isn't that good a movie.
Despite Megan Fox being undeniably hot, I cared very little about the humans, since all I watched the movie for was to see the damn robots fight.

[resistance100]

I give it 14hours before paramount switch

[Area_51]

hell yes, SCARFACE on Blu Ray FTMFW!!!!!

[LJWooly]

Now that's a movie. Second best gangster movie ever (first is The Godfather).

[beavis4play]

i liked goodfellas and hoodlum.(tim roth was kick a$$ in hoodlum)

[LJWooly]

Goodfellas and Hoodlum are both great movies, I'm glad you mentioned them. I pick Godfather as my all-time best, however, if not simply for the sheer quality of the acting in that movie.

[Area_51]

now we got to come up with a good idea for what to do with those 360 HD add on, I guess if you save them for 20 years they will a collector item maybe then you can get back what you paid for it..lol

[wAtdaFck]

MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

[SacredENA]

THAT was easy!

[rawd]

The comment section isn't complete until someone says

NAILS
+
COFFIN

[phony force slayer]

,my feind

[Lionsguard]

That's because we're way pass that stage, we're now at the
"pack the dirt down and roll out the grass" stage.

[Ashta]

Am I the only one who is actually happy that he might be able to see Stardust on Blu-Ray now?

Anyone else? Stardust? Seriously? I guess I'm alone there.

Oh, and Dawn of the Dead remake.....that would be awesome too.

[beavis4play]

stardust? forget that.(and i don't care to see DeNiro play that kind of role again. ever. EVER!

[Ashta]

Eh, that role was kind of unnerving but for some reason I just really liked the movie. It was an unexpected delight considering I went in to the movie thinking it would be the worst pile of crap ever, but instead came out loving it.

And despite De'Niro's strange choice in acting roles I still don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time when Septimus (yeah, I know the names, so what? wanna fight about it?) came in and was like WTF?!

[FAT MAN GO BOOM]

Serenity Blu-Ray please oh please oh please....

[cervantes99]

Serenity on Blu-Ray - I can't wait.

Now that the war is over - " ... were all just folk now" - Malcolm Reynolds.

[FAT MAN GO BOOM]

No Power in the verse can stop us...

Browncoats forever!!!

[TehRadge]

Turncoats :P

[Tru_Blu]

Serenity Now!!

[Trick Nolte]

This is SWEET! 1st the Giants Win and now this.Congrads to Sony and The Mannings.

[2Negativecool]

I'm glad that Universal c#nt is eating his words these days. He's stated over and over that he would NEVER support blu ray.

Suck it f4cktard.

[RINGOFDEATH]

they been falling since launch,look at their failure rate's.

[meepmoopmeep]

make sure Heroes is in the first batch released on Blu

[Mikelarry]

we can all move on and enjoy hd films on one format no more "i cant buy this movie cuz i dont surpport blu ray or hd dvd".

[BlackCountryBob]

Woo hoo Universal BD means Serenity, Hellboy 2 and the release of the Spielberg back catalogue (Jurassic Park). Now all we need is Paramount to confirm and I can get on and pre order Cloverfield on BluRay (yey).

[Primetimebt]

Bring on Bourne!!!!

[Genki]

I always said from the moment Paramount announced it, although I didn't personally agree with it, that the 150 mil deal was a great business decision. I figured, why not pocket a cool 150 mil while market penetration is still low anyway, and then simply jump ship when the user base is ripe.

I honestly expected this format contest to drag on for well over another year, but either way...looks like Paramount's deal payed off.

In all honesty, I'd have done the same thing. Good for Universal, btw :p

[LevDog]

Ok if you think about it.. This really isnt news.. Toshiba has already announced defeat.. Meaning if any studio wants to make HD movies available to the public they have to do it in blu ray.. So saying that a studio is now going blu is kinda pointless.. cause arent they all going blu cause they have too.. Hmm

[patterson]

Wow this is awesome news!

[ScottEFresh]

pwned

[Laxe]

At least now I can finally get Transformers on Bluray!

[TheD_R_E]

Exactly what i've been waiting for. So glad I didn't settle for the DVD version then upscaling it. Now I get to see Transformers in all it's HD glory.

[Bleucrunch]

too cool I bet their just regreting this move so much money lost!!!

[feejo]

We forgive you universal.

[solidt12]

Universal has alot of films that I want so this is good.